


A Little More Lemon

by steelehearts



Category: Poirot - Christie
Genre: M/M, Yuletide 2009
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 19:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelehearts/pseuds/steelehearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poirot tries lemon in his tea for the first time. A single situation, and a little wordplay on the author's part. Historical and scientific correctness not really taken into account.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little More Lemon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CK_Havlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CK_Havlock/gifts).



A Little More Lemon

 

Oh, heck. They were at it again. What two grown men did in the privacy of their rooms, or room, as the case may be, was entirely their own headache, and Miss Felicity Lemon did not see why she should bother with that. She just hoped they would be a little more careful. Why not shut the door properly? It had been only the other day when the faithful George was on a day’s leave, and Chief Inspector Japp had decided to show himself in. He had beaten a rather hasty retreat, his face red, muttering incomprehensible things under his breath. Miss Lemon had been amused.

What a pity, she thought while typing out the replies to the mail, that the eye could be easily closed when one wanted to, but the good God had not seen it fit to supply the ear with a similar convenience. The moans and groans, though muffled, were distracting her the tiniest little bit. Not that she minded. She merely filed it in her mind under ‘occasionally interesting occupational hazard’.

Miss Lemon permitted herself a genuinely delighted smirk. After a prolonged and self-imposed sabbatical, her employer was back in business. A new case, an unusual victim, the usual horde of suspects, and the little grey cells bashing it out like nobody else’s business. And now, by the sound of it, other things being bashed about as well. As always, after a small amount of, well, physical exercise giving a boost to his energy levels, Poirot’s little grey cells functioned better. But today… today they were celebrating. Poirot had just solved a case.

Her mind went back to the conversation that had taken place a few hours ago in the very room she was sitting in. She had always thought of herself as a calm, levelheaded woman who was shocked by nothing. And it was quite true. Nothing did shock Miss Lemon. She was a well brought-up Victorian lady who was as unflappable as a lump of rock. Only men like the Chief Inspector of Police, who thought that they had seen all the horrors that the world could throw at them, still had it in them to be shocked. She was mildly interested in the entire affair, mostly because she approved highly of her employer, and disapproved just as highly of the music-hall creature that had attached herself to that nice Captain Hastings.

But Miss Lemon was wrong.

‘Imagine, Mademoiselle Lemon,’ Poirot had suddenly said, ‘that you are a man.’

Miss Lemon had blinked once or twice. Hercule Poirot the Great sat in his immaculate drawing-room carefully blowing his nose into a spotless white handkerchief. He was muffled from head to foot in his favourite cold-weather clothes. In front of him, the faithful George knelt before the table, trying to make his master appreciate the charm of the English afternoon tea. Captain Hastings sat nearby, watching his old friend with worried eyes, the firelight flickering on his face.

‘_Eh bien_,’ said Poirot, ‘Hastings, your English doctor, he advises me to take the lemon in my tea. Vitamin C, he says. Good for the coughs and colds at this time of the year, he says. As if I, who am the great Hercule Poirot, need to be reminded of my vitamins! Pah!’ He stopped and sneezed twice. George was by his side in an instant, offering a tissue.

‘There you go again,’ said Hastings in a tone of gentle reproach. ‘Listen to the doctor, why don’t you, Poirot? A little lemon will do you no harm.’

‘It is sour.’ Poirot made a face. ‘And I do not like the taste sour. Also, it disagrees with my digestion. Ah, _mon estomac_, it is delicate!’ Poirot patted his rotund belly affectionately. George gave a little cough. ‘Yes, my Georges?’

‘Begging your pardon, Monsieur, the doctor is right. If you do not like it in your tea then you can try it with a little honey.’

‘Spoil the taste of good honey by adding lemon to it! Eh, _les Anglais_!’ Poirot shuddered. The tips of his carefully waxed moustache quivered indignantly. Hastings opened his mouth to protest but Poirot shook a finger at him. ‘No, no, _mon cher_ Hastings, do not defend your countryman! As it is, I already have a most wonderful personage of that name here… eh, Mademoiselle?’ Poirot’s eyes twinkled at Miss Lemon, insomuch as it was possible for them to twinkle through a film of rheum. In deference to her employer’s sudden turn of humour, Miss Lemon graced the company with a small smile. George made a funny sound that sounded suspiciously like a laugh being turned into a discreet butlery cough.

‘Yes, Georges? What now?’

‘Not much, Monsieur, except that I was suddenly reminded of a certain English word applied to a certain type of English lady. Not that Miss Lemon reminds me of that type of a lady,’ George hastened to add. He had seen Miss Lemon’s smile freeze.

‘Are you calling Miss Lemon a sourpuss?’ Hastings bristled at the suggestion of an indignity done to his countrywoman. Miss Lemon was of the female persuasion, though she did not boast tresses of the Captain’s preferred colour, and by the Captain’s code of conduct a lady’s presence demanded chivalry. Poirot hastened to smooth ruffled feathers.

‘No, no, Hastings, I wasn’t calling her a – what did you say the word is, Georges? A sourpuss? Thank you, my Georges. Not at all, Hastings.’ The little diversion over, he transferred his attention to his secretary. ‘Well, Mademoiselle?’

‘A man?’ Miss Lemon still looked extremely doubtful. Man was the territory where her imagination, never very elastic, feared to tread. Felicity had never required a man. Nevertheless she was keenly aware that the thing called ‘man’, though alien to her orbit, was needed for Planet Lemon’s continued existence. She coughed. ‘I do not think I could impersonate a… a man well enough, M. Poirot.’

‘Ah, no, no, dear lady, not impersonate! Imagine, merely imagine! Imagine yourself as a young hardworking Englishman about to marry his pretty girlfriend. None of them have a penny to their name. Both wish to make it big in this world. Both are very much in love. And now imagine the death of that child, that sweet girl, the apple of her lover’s eye!’ Poirot’s expression had become thoughtful. ‘Drinking the afternoon tea, no less. Hmm.’ He stood up suddenly and began to pace the room. Hastings took up his cup of tea. No sooner had he raised it to his lips than Poirot spoke again, this time with such vehemence that the Captain started and spilled his tea.

‘But what a fool! What a fool I have been, my Hastings! The whole thing was right in front of my eyes and I could not see it!’ Poirot’s eyes glinted green. But he looked vexed. ‘Do you not see, Hastings? It was the lemon – it was the lemon all the time! Recall what the man said. They had had tea sitting in the patio. He was fond of lemon in his tea, she was not. He had given her the cup with the lemon in it by mistake. She had sipped the tea and made a face. And afterwards…’ Poirot paused for dramatic effect. ‘Afterwards she died. But as a matter of fact, there was no lemon!’

‘What was it then?’ Hastings asked. He looked puzzled. George wore a look of polite incomprehension on his face and helped to dab the Captain’s shirtfront with a napkin. Miss Lemon, too, could not make head or tail out of this strange little lemony snippet. Poirot’s voice had risen almost to a treble in excitement. She had rarely seen him this sour.

‘I could smell nothing. I could not know. Had your terrible English weather not given me this cold, I would have solved this case much earlier.’ He stopped pacing and turned around to look triumphantly at the Captain.

‘Blame it on the weatherman,’ murmured Hastings.

‘Eh? What?’

‘Nothing. No lemon, you said?’

And so it had gone, with Poirot solving the case with a set of mismatched cups and the smell of an absent lemon as clues. Miss Lemon was, as always, deeply appreciative of the thought processes inside her employer’s head, that she never hoped to follow.

So now they were in a celebratory mood. Captain Hastings had protested mildly, using his friend’s cold as an excuse. Poirot had looked up at the Captain with innocent green I-have-not-broken-anything-_mon-cher_ kitten eyes. ‘You would not refuse your old friend this little _tête-à-tête_, my Hastings?’

And on this note they had gone indoors. George had vanished with accustomed discretion. Miss Lemon had sat down to her letters but not before she had dragged the heavy typewriter to a more convenient position. Any moment now they will be finished, thought Miss Lemon with half an ear devoted to the various funny noises coming out of the bedroom door, any moment now…

Hercule Poirot came out a minute later, dressing-gown, slippers, and carefully waxed moustache perfectly in place. The tip of his nose was redder than usual. Captain Hastings followed about five minutes afterwards, his hair still ruffled, noted Miss Lemon with intense disapproval. The Captain was a nice gentleman, but if only he would be a tad more organized. Miss Lemon was delightedly horrified at his little indiscretions, and quite forgave them. She just wished they would be a little more discreet, if not for their own sakes, then at least for other people’s.

She reflected with a fond smile on the last words of Captain Hastings before he acceded to the great detective’s request. Hastings had taken one look at Poirot’s guileless expression, and said, ‘Take your lemon.’


End file.
